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The Carpinteria-based oil company Venoco has been “acidizing” its offshore wells from Platform Holly to extract more resources in recent years, and Santa Barbara’s Environmental Defense Center is concerned that the process — in which hydrochloric and/or hydrofluoric acid gets pumped into the earth to dissolve rocks and free up oil — is being allowed without additional environmental review. The discovery of 10 instances of acidizing from the rig, which sits in state water off of the Goleta coast, was made by the EDC’s student intern Matthew Buggert, who was funded by a grant from UCSB Associated Students Coastal Fund, as he researched public records from the state’s Division of Oil, Gas, & Geothermal Resources.

Most of those instances were “matrix acidizing,” as compared to the more pressurized process of “fracture acidizing,” which cracks the rocks like hydraulic fracturing, aka fracking. Historically, acidizing was used to clean well pipes, but companies have more recently started to use it on the Monterey shale formation for extraction. “There’s a lot of new or modified technologies that are being used, and it’s not just fracking,” said the EDC’s Brian Segee. “For us, they raise similar concerns about lack of transparency and lack of prior environmental analysis.” Venoco did not return an email seeking comment as of press deadline.

Comments

Thank goodness oil companies are using chemicals deposited thousands of feet below the ocean floor, with no chance of seepage or exposure to the ocean, to extract lower cost and lower risk oil and natural gas right here in American (vs. Middle East or elsewhere).

But...- giant increase in the green/left lying or mis-leading in order to drum up fear and then donations to keep their jobs/non-profits running- giant increase in selfish ego-pumping via articles like this one, along with meetings, fliers, organizing, etc. which just inflates own self-image.

Even if all the acid escaped at once it would do minor damage for a few days (slightly change immediate ocean acidity levels) and disappear. The acid levels near natural ocean vents do this continuously.

Since Venoco claims that producing oil from the formation from which they are pumping reduces the quantity and rates of leaks from the seep formations, is it possible that acidizing could affect the seeps by either decreasing or increasing seep rates and quantities? These are the sorts of questions that are relevant and should be asked and answered. Venoco seems to want to be able to claim that their activities reduce air pollution and liquid oil emissions from seeps but does not want to acknowledge that their well stimulation activities could affect seep emissions. They cannot have it both ways. Either the formations from which they are producing are connected to the seep formations or not. If they are then any stimulation activities could affect the seeps and should be analyzed before being allowed. If the formations are not connected (which ARCO claimed many years ago), then no analysis is necessary. But if that's the case, then Venoco needs to quit claiming that producing oil reduces seep emissions.